I feel exactly the same way. It’s bad when it’s a table at a library or something, but in a bathroom…that stuff is supposed to be private (and for good reason). Peeing is bad enough, but sometimes when you have to poop and someone comes in and sits in the stall next to you…ugh!

I’m so glad I’m not the only that gets aggravated with this. It makes me nuts when there are 6 stalls and I’m the only one in there, then someone comes and just has to use the one right next to me. I don’ t want to listen to your bodily functions, nor do I want to subject you to mine, unless there is no other choice.

If this note was in the restroom at my workplace, and the writer was in a stall, I’d go into the stall right next to him, sit down, and after a few minutes, I’d say, “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned.”

….. Am I the only one who doesn’t care? As long as there is a stall wall between us, I don’t even notice if you’re in the next stall or the one five doors down. It’s a bathroom – we’re both there to do a job.

But if it’s a big job, please use the trashcan. The pipes can’t handle it.

Yeah, I’m with The Elf on this one. I totally understand this mentality when it comes to urinals, and I’m glad I’m not a guy so I don’t have to worry about that, but as long as we’re in separate stalls I really don’t care if there’s someone right next to me or on the other end of the bathroom. If I’ve got to go and there’s only one empty stall, I’m taking it. If you’ve got a problem with it you need to find an emptier bathroom.

It’s different with women. Since we all use those stalls vs. not all men using them (since they could just be using the urinal), sometimes the condition of the toilets is not the best, e.g. urine on the seat from women who don’t fully sit down, others who don’t flush or flush properly. Paper everywhere. That might mean the only one not too gross to use is right next to another woman.

I’ve gone into bathrooms where 3+ toilets are just not clean, and my ability to use a clean stall takes precedence over your ability to feel like nobody’s in your space–especially since there’s a wall so we can’t see you, and we all know you’re just gonna wait til we leave the bathroom to come out of the stall you’re doing the #2 in. Admit it.

I can understand in a public bathroom where the conditions are sometimes wretched and variable and we are all strangers who will shuffle off and never see each other again… but I always try to acknowledge the buffer rule in the work bathroom if it all possible. I agree that the worst thing in the world is being the only person in a quiet public restroom, relaxing, making bathroom functions, only to have another person enter the bathroom and make a beeline for the stall right next to you. Give me some space!

I’ll also freely admit I have some issues and am a super shameful public bathroom pooper. Will not do unless completely necessary.

If this is really a problem for you and there really are more than 2 stalls, there is a simple solution: Go to the farthest stall from the entrance (as appropriate for your handicap status). People who don’t care will generally head for the nearest stall. People who are like you will avoid you in any case. People who robotically obey the herd instinct will find you no matter what you do. If you encounter one of those, just end your appointment and get out as fast as you can.

See, I disagree, #1 definitely applies to urinals. Stalls I’m not bothered about, there are walls for goodness sake, you don’t have to stare into each other’s eyes while going. That said, make a conscious effort not to leave the stall at the same time as me, that’s just wierd…

If I were a guy at this office, I’d totally use the middle stall every time. Imagine the discomfort you’ve created for the note writer when he has a 4 alarm emergency and there are two stalls available that he can’t use.

I find these man rules to be seriously lacking. What do you do if the “buffer zone” stall is the only one open? What if there are three stalls, and the “buffer zone” stall is the only one being used. Is it always against the man rules to use the “buffer zone” stall?

I’ve heard the same stat and usually use the first one. I’ve also repeatedly been the bathroom “savior” who apparently is the only one with enough guts to flush the toilet when the auto flush didn’t work for a previous person. I wonder how long a busy bathroom has an “unusable” stall just because everyone else is too afraid to flush a damn toilet!

This guy is ridiculous. Man Code clearly permits use of adjacent stalls if no buffer is available. Especially in the sit-down toilets, where you’ve got a full divider and a door. Things are a little more tense at Urinals, but not really.

MAN CODE SAYS THE FOLLOWING:

1.) If you enter a public restroom that is unoccupied, you go to the stall farthest from the door. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS. If the far end of the row is invisible to you because it dips below the curve of the earth’s surface in the distance, YOU CLENCH AND KEEP WALKING.

2.) If the farthest position is occupied, you use the nearest stall to the door. Exception is granted ONLY if the position nearest the door, due to faulty design, is visible from outside the restroom while the door is open. In that case, all stalls in the field of vision may be considered null in all calculations.

3.) If both the farthest and nearest stalls are occupied, you select a stall dead-center between them. If there is an even number of stalls, and thus none in the “middle”, you may employ whatever system you prefer to select one, including choosing to wait until a “neutral” stall is available. THERE IS NO SHAME IN THIS, NO MATTER WHAT YOU CHOOSE.

4.) This pattern of farthest -> nearest -> center will continue until all stalls are filled. Exceptions are granted where following the pattern would necessitate filling an unoccupied stall adjacent to an occupied one BEFORE filling a stall with buffers intact. Buffers should be preserved at all costs, until no options are available.

5.) Further exception – if a dude is at a urinal or sit-down toilet ON HIS CELLPHONE, you are REQUIRED BY MAN CODE to occupy space next to him. You may then observe if the call is “legit”, a genuine emergency of such magnitude that he had to take it while dropping a log. Use your best judgment. IF THE CALL IS NOT LEGIT, YOU ARE OBLIGATED BY MAN CODE TO BE AS DISGUSTINGLY NOISY AS POSSIBLE.

What a bunch of neurotic sissies. Yeah, like I’m gonna clench and wait just to avoid very mildly and very temporarily inflicting the most insignificant discomfort on some neurotic princess. I’ll use whatever is available and clean, thank you very much. Grow up!

See, I always thought this Man Code only applied to urinals, and the stalls were there in case you found yourself in a situation in which you might violate the urinal buffer zone.

Oddly enough, I also understand that in a restroom with 5-6 urinals, if 1 and 2 are occupied and 5 is occupied, you should choose urinal 3 rather than 4 or 6. Something about 3 dudes stacked together being preferable to pairing off. Sounds like a lot of homophobic nonsense to me, but I suppose men have their reasons…

I do agree that you should leave a buffer stall if possible. If the adjacent stall is all that is available (or, for instance, there are only two stalls), then it’s perfectly fine to use it…unless you’re one of those people that decides to sit in that stall and then wait for everyone else to leave so *you* can have a little privacy after you’ve already interrupted theirs. If you have time to wait in the stall, then you didn’t have to go bad enough that you couldn’t have just returned a little later..

Oh, for God’s sake, Note Writer! Are you afraid that people will discover that you shit? Heaven forbid you be recognized by the public as having the same bodily functions as the rest of us! I’m not even a man, but I feel the sudden urge to follow you into the bathroom and sit in the stall right next to you. And make no noise, to leave you wondering what I’m up to. Just to mess with you.

I beg to differ. It’s a game of territory, like go. If all stalls are unoccupied, take the middle and claim all other stalls as ‘captured’. That way, if someone else comes in, at best they can only take half your stalls. If only an end stall is occupied, take the stall adjacent thereby blocking your opponent and capturing the rest of the stalls. Etc.

The notewriter has serious issues and must be a peach in the office.
Everyone craps, the walls and doors are there – not a big deal.
Unless this is George Costanza: I have always been a stall man!
The discussion about urinals is almost moot. The placement of “privacy dividers” is widespread.
To mess with this whiner I would turn this notice upside down without any comment.

Our admin bathroom is intended to be used by one occupant at a time. It’s very small, the door locks,there’s a single sink and one toilet – but for some reason, the toilet is enclosed in a tiny stall. And the stall door pushes into the stall, so you have to lock it while you go.I can’t figure out the logic. Who am I hiding from? I mean, the main door is locked and no one else could fit in there anyway. Maybe there’s a little paranoia behind the design.

We have the excuse that this particular restroom was added later as a concession to all the women who work on the floor, because when the building was first designed, some bright spark decided that the multi-stall men’s and women’s bathrooms should be on alternating floors, rather than having one of each on every floor.

I still don’t understand the “locking outer door AND stall divider” thing though.

Whoever made this note is an idiot with insecurity problems. While it’s courteous to try to keep a stall between you, it’s by no means required. Especially in an office building like mine where 90% of the bathrooms only have two sit-down stalls, and in the one with three sit-downs the last one is the handicapped stall.

How did the female submitter get this note in the first place? Did some man hand it to her and tell her to submit it here? Why didn’t he do so himself? Perhaps he was the original note writer, or maybe he needs to ‘man up’?

Anyway, rule #2 is moronic. As if bathroom builders ever say “Let’s build a stall in the middle that some tool can use as a ‘buffer zone’.”

First of all, it’s not a MAN code it’s a prissy little b***h code. It’s a restroom for crying out loud and is meant for you to take a poop in. Just be glad you have a stall and running water rather than a hole in the ground in the open.

Guys who have this issue will tell you that it’s about wanting more privacy or w/e, but you eventually realize that, for the majority of these men, it’s more like some kind of bizarre homophobia.

I prefer privacy too, but believe me when I say that nobody wants to sneak a peak at you taking a shit in a public restroom. 99.9% of gay men wouldn’t even want to look at Ricky Martin doing his business, and he almost certainly looks much prettier than you while he does it.

All mammals who maintain a constant territory have a built in instinct to hide their feces. In domesticated animals it’s weakened, but you can see it with cats burying their dung, and many dogs making a perfunctory effort to do the same. Humans have it as well, but most of us (even Men) have learned to rise above animal instinct.

Note writer clearly has not. The panic of some potential predator knowing where he craps sends up red flags to him. So he posts idiotic rules, has the audacity to try and legitimize them as some sort of formal “Man’s code” (which I never got to vote on), and acts surprised and offended when others ignore them.

“All mammals who maintain a constant territory have a built in instinct to hide their feces.”

That’s simply not true. Cats are, in fact, the only ones who do that. Canines and martens use them to mark the territory – your “trying to hide the crap” you witness is just making a statement to their virility by leaving an even bigger smell-mark with the pads of their feet and a visible one with the claws.

Roe-deer is very territorial and the still don’t care about their shit – they poop where they need to.

You’re welcome to your own etiquettes in a bathroom and sure are free to leave if something is too much for you, but saying it’s natural is just plain untrue.

Yes and no. My three dogs each like to poop and pee in the same places, but individually. In my back yard you can see where they each have been, shall we say, “concentrating their efforts”, but it is a different spot for each of them. But when walking they all like to pee on other dog’s pee, but each of them has certain places on the walk that is special to them and whatever dog also always goes there. It is a weird cycle…

I follow these rules when applicable but to leave or wait so as not to break the rules is a little absurd. If I need to go, I need to go. I don’t have time to avoid offending your bathroom etiquette.

The old gym I used to go to had a men’s room that consisted of two urinals and an open toilet, like in prison, no privacy walls. I think we should all go back to open toilets, no privacy walls in the bathrooms. If you can poop on an open stall with other people in the room, you can do anything.

What I want to know is why do most men seem to want to marinade in the smell of it? I buy spray for the bathrooms here at work (because OMG the green funk that comes out of that door makes me want to puke) and they still don’t use it. Is there some man code against killing the fumes I don’t know about? It’s not like I bought some flower scented girl stuff. Help me understand!

Elf – It was a odor neutralizer – thus no smell. Since you can’t read the fact I didn’t buy girl type stuff, I don’t know what to tell you.

Thanks for playing.

This isn’t just a work issue. It’s made fun of on TV all the time, too. Deal with it.

NOOOOO!! – I have bought something called “Tap a Drop” before, it’s like what you are talking about, but the Marines couldn’t figure out what the concept was behind the name of the product. LOL I love um, but sometimes….

Elf’s point is that that stuff rarely ever works the way you expect it to, and then you end up with two offensive odors instead of one. You might as well just let it dissipate on its own and crack a window (if possible).

Frankly I’d be more creeped out by knowing someone was outside my stall waiting for me to finish pinching a loaf than I would be by someone ignoring the buffer rules and taking the stall directly next to me.

This is just weird… I mean, I don’t actively choose a stall next to an occupied one, because I definitely prefer a bit of distance. But I wouldn’t leave a bathroom just because that distance is not attainable and I don’t expect this stuff from anyone.

If people can’t stand the closeness of toilet-stalls, they should control their bowls and do their business at home.

My bowls are uncontrollable, no matter what I try. This morning, in fact, I came downstairs to find that they had all filled themselves with cereal! I couldn’t possibly eat it all, so I brought some to work and poured it into the urinal.

I have honestly *never* heard of, or considered, a buffer stall; like most gals, I’m just focused on finding a clean one.

Wonder how many people I’ve weirded out by traipsing into a stall right next to them in an otherwise empty restroom. I’m thinking lots, at off-peak shopping hours in the cavernous latrines at The Mall of America. (hee hee hee!)

You know what will fix this guy is a good few months in a country without fancy American toilets. I used to be so uptight about public bathrooms that if I had to drop a deuce at work and someone was in the restroom already, I’d walk to another floor. Then I spent two months in the Middle East sharing one bathroom with nine other students, both male and female. And we couldn’t flush our toilet paper and only had a tiny wastebasket that our landlord emptied infrequently. And then my roommate and I both got dysentery. Also, giant cockroaches.

In all sincerity, that will make you realize that a clean, working toilet is the ONLY criteria that matters.

But if I’m an organized crime hit man, I must use the urinal right next to the guy I’m about to shoot so we can exchange Meaningful Looks before I shoot him. Also, next stall is good for dramatic shooting through a wall and watching his body half-fall to the floor. This is what cliche-ridden movies tell me, and they must be right: they’re movies!

Not sure about men…but if the alternating stall has pee on the seat, or hasn’t been flushed, I’m sitting in the clean one next to yours whether you like it or not. And guys..don’t empty your ileostomy bag in the work restroom sink…(we had a guy that did that all the time…even while others stood at the other sink and washed their hands) That seemed to be a bigger guy no-no to hear them complain.

This guy is a pussy and he’s the one with issues. being surrounded by metal walls and a locked door isn’t enough for you? Why don’t you go somewhere else, you don’t own the bathroom. There’s nothing “manly” about this lame sentiment.

How weird. I’ve never even considered that I’m somehow supposed to ‘check’ and look to see what stalls are occupied. I would just use the first one I see that’s open. So… if I’m following the gist of these rules, it would also be equally perverse for someone to use the MIDDLE stall of a three stall bathroom if all others are open?

So urinals 1-3-5-7-9 are occupied, and a huge line of guys waiting to piss. I go in, take urinal # 2, and piss, and be on my merry way. I go to a bathroom to do my business and be on my way. I am tired of the ‘mancode’ of the douchebag homophobic losers that need a buffer zone to pee in solitude. Little boys need to grow up.